


what the rest have left behind

by watfordbird33



Series: codependent, disinclined [3]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: First Time, M/M, Post-Watford (Simon Snow), Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 21:06:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12044271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watfordbird33/pseuds/watfordbird33
Summary: “Fuck,” Snow says, very loudly, “do you want to have sex?”There’s this long ringing moment of silence and Baz counts twenty-eight pulses in the back of his throat. He can only imagine the expression on his face.“I didn’t think you wanted to,” he says.“You didn’t--of course I did; I didn’t think you did!”“Well, you’ve never done it--”“Neither have you!”





	what the rest have left behind

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for shameless but feelings-y smut. I wouldn't exactly rank this as PWP, because it goes with other works in this series, but...there's a lot of sexual content. Title taken from Catherine Russell's "Romance In The Dark".

“Baz?”

Baz scrambles for his email, but he’s not fast enough. This  _ has  _ to be the one time Snow manages to be silent coming into the room.

“What the--”

It’s Baz’s favorite  _ Firefly  _ episode, frozen onscreen, and Mal and Saffron are wrapped up half-naked in a way that looks unfortunately like porn. Snow’s watched a few episodes with him, but the expanse of flesh is so all-consuming in this one that it’s impossible to distinguish Nathan Fillion’s face from a hunky male extra.

“Um,” Baz says, “it’s not what it--it’s not--”

When he twists around, Snow’s perched on the back of his chair, eyes very wide.

“Sorry,” he says, detaching himself from the backrest. “Sorry; I’ll just--”

_ “Wait--” _

But it’s too late. Snow’s already backed out of the room, face still twisted into a parody of shock.

 

“It was  _ Firefly,  _ you wanker,” Baz says, later. Snow’s halfway through a curry, and looking rather as if he’ll make it through the rest. “You know. The show you watched with me, a few times.”

“I didn’t realize you were--it was--”

“Goddammit, Snow, it was a  _ kissing  _ scene. Not  _ porn. _ ”

Snow flinches in this kind of twitchy, wide-eyed way. It makes Baz wonder if the emotion on his face is shock or arousal--a prospect which has his waistband feeling uncomfortably tight. They’ve never really talked about things of this sort before.

“Did you--” Baz isn’t sure how to voice this. “You look--”

Snow talks over him. “I wouldn’t have been  _ mad,  _ per se _ \-- _ I mean, we haven’t--”

They both stop, very suddenly.

“Oh,” Baz says, sort of like a question.

“Did you--do you--”

“I don’t--”

Baz’s cheeks are warm.

“You’re blushing,” Snow says, accusingly. Pointing. His wings lash.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are, you great filthy--”

“Watch yourself, there, Snow, wouldn’t want to--”

Snow puts all his silverware down. It’s done in a way that seems overly aggressive, but maybe that’s just Baz projecting. He gets up from the table and pushes his chair in.

“I’m sorry,” Baz says.

It’s hard to say it. It’s always been hard to say it.

Snow shakes his head. “It’s not you.”

Baz looks at him. He’s sheltering his lower half behind the chair, knuckles clenched on the top of it. Wings bared. Flushed in a way Baz has never seen before.

“We’re bad at this,” Snow says. “Because I think we both--”

Baz stands up, too. His napkin falls.

“What I’m trying to say,” Snow blusters, “is--I--um, I would have understood, if it--you know, if it  _ was  _ porn, because we’ve never--we haven’t--if that’s what you--if we could--we haven’t-- _ done that.” _

Baz snorts in spite of himself.

“Don’t be so--you know what I mean, Baz; you don’t have to be a tosser about it.”

“I’m not being a tosser.”

“Yes, you are. You’re all--oh, fuck, I don’t know, you’re just so--you’re  _ smirking  _ again,  _ stop  _ it!”

“I can’t help it,” Baz snaps; “you’re being such a clueless--”

_ “Fuck,”  _ Snow says, very loudly, “do you  _ want  _ to have sex?”

There’s this long ringing moment of silence and Baz counts twenty-eight pulses in the back of his throat. He can only imagine the expression on his face.

“I didn’t think you wanted to,” he says.

“You didn’t--of course I did; I didn’t think  _ you  _ did!”

“Well, you’ve never  _ done  _ it--”

“Neither have  _ you!” _

They stand, panting and glaring. Baz is not sure entirely what the point of this conversation is, and why they’re acting so belligerent when really they’d both be delighted if they started tearing the clothes off each other right now.

“It was just  _ Firefly,”  _ he says, an apology. Weak.

“I know.”

Baz moves out from behind his chair, and Snow heaves this little breath in-and-out, like a whimper. It’s unimaginably sexy.

“We don’t have to,” Baz says.

“I want to. Baz, I--”

They both swallow. Baz can see the showiness of Snow’s, long and rolling down the column of his neck.

“I want to,” Snow repeats. He’s very quiet, but when he shifts behind his chair, Baz can see the tension in his wings and arms. “Do you?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to  _ tell you _ ,” Baz growls, and moves forward another step.

“Do we have--are we--”

“We have everything.”

Snow is staring at Baz’s crotch. “Did  _ you  _ get them?”

“No,” Baz says, deadpan, “I asked Bunce to pop out to the store, grab some extra-small condoms and a thing of--”

Snow splutters and jerks his head up.  _ “Extra-small?”  _ And then, turning even redder, “I know you’re kidding, but--does that mean--do you--you want me to--?”

“What? I-- _ oh.” _

Baz hasn’t thought about that: topping, bottoming. He hasn’t really thought about any of this in detail, other than the protection. Watford was very adamant about the protection.

“I,” he says, floundering, and then: “Whatever you’re comfortable with. We don’t even--this first time--we don’t have to, you know, do the--the  _ real  _ thing--”

Snow’s pupils are dilated.

Baz feels helpless. “Do you want me to--get it?”

“The--”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. I--maybe we should, um, clean up?”

It seems a very mundane and strange thing to do, in the middle of a conversation about sex, right after the promise of it. But they do it anyway. Baz ferries plates to the kitchen, and Snow rinses them. The table gets wiped down. Bunce’s status is checked: she’s staying at her mum’s for the weekend, and hasn’t suffered any sort of homesickness that would cause her to come home in the middle of what they’re about to do.

Baz gets this weird aching thrill every time he thinks about that.  _ What they’re about to do.  _

“All good?” he says, eventually, when the dishes have been dried and put away, and Snow’s stored his phone on the shelf in the kitchen where he keeps it.

“Yeah,” Snow says. “Um. Yeah.”

Moving to the bedroom is awkward. It’s never been awkward before, when Baz stays over and they retreat side-by-side to Snow’s big double mattress and fall asleep spooning or on their backs wrapped in Snow’s wings. This time, though, it’s like everything’s hanging between them. Baz can’t figure out how to turn the doorknob right.

“You’re an idiot; just get your fingers ‘round it--”

“Fuck you--I know how to work a doorknob--”

After another moment of twisting and swearing, he gets it open and holds the door for Snow, and then follows him in and closes the door behind them. It’s dark in Snow’s bedroom, unframed photos of Bunce and Baz looming like monsters taped to the walls. Baz reaches for the light. When it comes on, it feels a little like sacrilege.

Snow’s the one who finds the condoms and lube--they’re in the bathroom cabinet, behind the toilet paper. The lube blares,  _ Make room in the bedroom for a bit of helpful slide!  _ which makes Snow snort so loud he almost drops the container.

Baz is glad he’s sitting on the mattress, so Snow can’t see his blush.

After a moment more of rummagining in the cabinet, Snow turns off the light in the bathroom and stands for a moment in the doorway, all fuzzy angles and lines, wings spread golden-wide. Baz tries not to stare at the shape his jeans make below his waist. 

“I’m nervous,” Snow says, very softly.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“I want to. I can be nervous and still want to.”

“Right,” Baz says, because that’s how he feels, like a bunch of firecrackers in his stomach, like a spoonful of desire in his mouth. He wants to reach out and grab Snow’s wings and drag him close. He wants to kiss him on the mouth, feel him squirm, feel him hot and strong and everywhere. He wants to lie tangled in the sheets with him, after having memorized the shape of him, the scent.

Snow crosses the room, puts the lube and condoms on the nightstand, turns off the light, and shucks his socks. 

“Wait,” Baz says. He both likes and hates how vulnerable this makes him feel.  _ Watching.  _ “Can I--will you let me--”

Snow nods.

Baz gets up from the bed and slips his hands under Snow’s shirt. He’s wearing one of those synthetic football jerseys, one Bunce picked out at a Marks & Spencer, and it comes off easily over his head. Then his jeans. Snow’s tail lashes like a protest, but Baz soothes it with a hand.

Then it’s Simon Snow in boxers and nothing else, and  _ that’s  _ distracting, goddammit, distracting in the way that makes Baz stop undressing him and just sort of stand there touching his shoulders and breathing in and out, both of them settling, breathing, acquainting themselves with the newness of this reality.

Baz likes it. He really, really does.

“Okay?” he asks Snow, and Snow nods and takes the top of Baz’s shirt in both his hands.

It turns out undressing someone is very different from  _ being  _ undressed by someone, and Baz has to close his eyes several times so he won’t do something stupid. Snow’s fingers are long and smooth and a little bit callused, near the tips. He gets all the buttons of Baz’s shirt undone (miraculously--sometimes he can’t even manage to do his own), and when he moves to his jeans, Baz is already panting. Just a bit, of course. He’s perfectly in control.

When Snow’s done with the jeans, they stand facing each other, in boxers and nothing else. Baz feels horribly shy about taking that final step--getting his fingers in the waistband of Snow’s boxers and sliding them down his legs. What if he fucks up somehow?

“Good?” Snow says, and it’s the pitch of his voice that relaxes Baz: that low, nervous hum.

“What do you think, Snow?”

“You look a little--you look a bit terrified, if I’m being honest.”

Baz scoffs.

“You’re all right,” Snow says, gently; “I’ve got you. It’s just me.”

Baz kisses him. With almost no clothes it’s very different and they kind of slide up against each other in this way, skin-on-skin, that makes Baz unbearably hard. Snow’s lips are warm. He’s always warm. His wings kind of flare and wrap around them, and Snow makes a noise against Baz’s mouth.

Simultaneous boxer removal turns out to be rather difficult, so Baz lets Snow do his first, and keeps his eyes closed so he doesn’t see any shock or disappointment on Snow’s face. Then he fumbles Snow’s down. He keeps his eyes closed, but he brings his hands around to Snow’s back, just above his ass, and feels for the jut of his tail. It’s leathery-smooth and impatient.

“Bed?” Baz says.

“Bed,” Snow agrees.

It’s Snow who ends up backing Baz down into the bed, and bending him over it, and kissing his face and his collarbones and the line of his chest down to his waist. It requires a bit of manueuvering to get Baz actually oriented on the mattress, and it makes him moan a little, wanting, when Snow has to detach to push him up. It’s okay, though, because then Snow’s on top of him, wings shielding them, lying stomach-to-stomach and chest-to-chest. Baz can feel the exact point where the tension is turning to pleasure at his groin.

And then-- _ oh,  _ Snow reaches down between them, takes both of them in his hand. It’s entirely awkward and entirely wonderful and entirely just right, the out-of-rhythm pumping, the slickness of them together, the way Snow has to keep shifting and shifting his fingers to accomodate them both. Baz is sort of in another dimension at this point, and he doesn’t even have the strength to offer to be the one in charge.

“I’m, um,” Snow says, and the endearing halt of it is just enough to make Baz’s lips curl, loving him. This beautiful mess of a boy. “I’m. Is--can I--oh, fuck, I don’t want to make you come, yet, I’m going to--I’ll just, um, I’ll get the--”

“That’s good,” Baz gasps, meaning it, even though he might go insane with the friction and the feeling of it, the length of him up against Snow, this unresolved tension Snow’s promising, what it will mean when he takes his hand away. 

And it  _ is _ jarring, and unapologetically cold, when Snow pulls himself off of Baz and reaches for a condom. There’s a bit of groping around and squinting at labels and directions in the dark, but eventually he manages to get the packet open right. 

He’s gorgeous, silhouetted and clean. Head bowed as he struggles with the condom, rolling it down over himself, dropping the wrapper to the floor. He kneels there for a minute next to Baz, just looking.

“You should probably--I, um--maybe turn over?”

That almost makes Baz laugh. The juxtaposition of godly beauty and utter cluelessness. Only Snow. He flips over and hides his smirk in the pillows just in time.

There’s the slow crack of the lube being opened, and the slide of it in between Snow’s hands. Then the weight of him on Baz’s legs. He probes a finger, gently, against Baz’s hole, and in.

And it feels. It. Snow. He. Oh. 

Baz can’t even summon the strength to make a noise. He closes his eyes.

It’s silent, at first. Snow works his finger gently, withdraws--it  _ hurts _ , his absence--adds more lube, enters again. It feels all at once perfect and explosive and strange and wrong. Baz has never been touched this way before.

“Now-- _ Simon-- _ is it okay--I’m going to--”

“Wait, can you--keep--can you--”

Baz sucks a breath in and steels himself. “Yes,” he says, not sure if that’s true.

“I just want--um, I want to, I want to feel you--”

It’s so very unlike Snow that Baz has to laugh. He shakes with it, two of Simon’s fingers still half-buried inside him. “Aleister fucking Crowley,” he says against the pillows; “is this a porn flick?”

Snow laughs a little. Works his fingers deeper, so Baz whimpers. He’s so hard it’s physically painful against the sheets. “I want you, Baz,” Snow says, in a deep, cracking voice. “I want to feel your beautiful ass.”

“Put your dick in me,” Baz goes, and it sets Snow off, and this laughter has never felt so nice, because it’s both of theirs, humming through them, all at once and everywhere.

The lube opens again, and Baz fists the sheets to keep himself from coming right there and then. Snow slicks it onto himself--Baz can hear the soft noise he makes. Then there’s some movement, and breath on the back of his neck, and a second later Snow’s callused hands draw him open, and there’s pressure at the base of his hole.

“Are you--”

“Yes,” Baz gasps, and he sounds like a porn flick, and he doesn’t care. He wants--he wants-- “Yes, yes, fuck,  _ fuck it, do it now.” _

A low groan and then Snow is easing into him, stretching, painful. It’s this surge of absolute rightness, security, love so deep it makes Baz want to put his head down and cry.

He will not cry. (He has to keep his fans.)

Snow finds a slow rhythm, in and out, and Baz rocks his hips inadvertently, arches his back in some delirious attempt to get Snow deeper, match his thrusts. They’re both making noises. Heat, and Snow’s wings are everywhere, red and absolute; his tail sidewinds Baz’s shoulder, curls around his thigh. It’s too much and it’s just right and it’s everything and Baz can’t he can’t he won’t Snow it’s just that knowledge that knowing Simon’s there and he’ll always be there and fuck, fuck, fuck, _I love you,_ _I love you,_ and he’s coming all at once, shuddering, legs spread wide, Snow pulling out and coming too, shaking together, everywhere, and it’s enough, it’s enough, it will never be enough.

“Simon,” Baz says, because suddenly this seems like the most important thing: calling him Simon, telling him all the beautiful messy shit inside his head. “Simon, I--”

“I know,” Snow says, and he puts his head on Baz’s shoulder, and gets real close, so Baz can smell his aftershave. “I know.”


End file.
